Where To Buy DVD Audio/SACD/Hi Def Music

Dredd123

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As per thread title, I have finally got myself a device which will play DVD Audio and SACD (it is a Denon BluRay Player). I'm pretty sure DVD Audio and SACD are now obsolete formats but was wondering if music is still being released on these formats, or if there is anywhere I can still buy them from (thinking of replacing a few favourites from my back catalogue of vinyl/CD's). Also is there a new high definition music format/media/standard which has superseded these?

Thanks in advance,
Dave.
 
They're both close to obsolete, but yet both are surviving just about with the occasional release.

Some recent examples on DVD-Audio is the 40th Anniversary King Crimson recordings. And on SACD we finally got our hands on Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here only last year. I have YES: Close to the Edge SACD on preorder with amazon and is currently down for a Feb release(that's slipped a few times already). Unfortunately the trend for SACD seems to be moving away from multi-channel, most upcoming releases are planned as stereo only(as will be the case with the recently announced Roger Waters: Amused To Death SACD, same goes for the YES SACD I mention above).

New releases are certainly few and far between, and I suppose Bluray Audio has more joined more than superseded the other two high res formats. I don't expect Bluray Audio to receive a great many releases either TBH as there just isn't enough interest in high-res, too many folks are content with compressed downloads on their ipods etc.

Best places to buy really are amazon, ebay, and occasionally other places with far smaller stock such as WOWHD and play.com(mostly marketplace sellers now though, and in a couple of months that's all play.com will be as they're closing as a business). It's sad as I used to also use places such as The Hut, Zavvi, Tesco etc. but most of those seem to have completely delisted their SACD's now:(
 
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As per thread title, I have finally got myself a device which will play DVD Audio and SACD (it is a Denon BluRay Player). I'm pretty sure DVD Audio and SACD are now obsolete formats but was wondering if music is still being released on these formats, or if there is anywhere I can still buy them from (thinking of replacing a few favourites from my back catalogue of vinyl/CD's). Also is there a new high definition music format/media/standard which has superseded these?

Thanks in advance,
Dave.

I suppose it really depends upon how one defines "obsolete" with regard to music formats. There are still lots of these being released onto the market, although many more SACDs than DVD-As, but it's a niche market for sure. That said, high quality recorded music reproduction has always been a niche market that the average consumer doesn't appreciate.

As Tetlee quite rightly points out, I'll agree that the various Amazon and eBay sites are invaluable for buying these formats. You might also find the website sacd.net very useful, and/or the DVD-A Registry.

Great to hear you have bought a Denon UDP - I think it should bring you enormous pleasure in the years to come, I started buying DVD-As about 7 and a half years ago (SACDs just over 8 years ago), and they were already being discussed as dead formats back then. I'm so glad I went ahead and bought a hi-res player and the discs to play on it, without taking too much notice. There is apprently such a format as Blu-ray audio, but I have to confess to not being very familar with BD. I'd happily consider another digital physical format to join my CDDA, DTS-CD, DVD-V, SACD and DVD-As, but I believe they are not backwards compatible (unlike Hybrid SACDs and DVD-As), so that has held me back.

Enjoy the music, whatever the format.
 
As Theo said, Blu-ray Audio is a more recent format. They launched it a while ago and anumber of initial releases have sold out. So those too can be found on ebay or Discogs. At a real basic level BD-A can do a Dolby Atmos sound track and not just 5.1.

There are new BD-A being released. The Beatles 50th Anniversary box sets have recently been released. You get around 6 discs in each, one of the discs is a BD-A with surround version of the album. I've recently bought S.Peppers, While Album and Abbey Road. The surround mixed are very enjoyable but the sets are darn expensive if all you want is that one disc. I've bought these on Amazon.

The other format that pre-dates SACD and DVDA is DTS. There are some great 5.1 albums on that format too.

You can pick up some SACDs very reasonably priced. I've see Pink Floyd DSOTM , Nick Drake, Dire Straits, and a number of Elton John albums from his back catalogue up on ebay and/or amazon for <£20.
 
pmsl just realised this thread is from 2013...it came up on the "similar threads" list :D:facepalm:
 
If you have the right set up then you can convert your vinyl collection to hires format.
Analogue vinyl at hires sounds way better than digitally sourced material in my view. It depends what you are used to. Many won't like the analogue sound if not used to it.
I'm currently converting my rips from flac to dsd 128. This would be my preferred codec. I can take them to dsd 256 but it's doesn't add anything extra and takes up massive space. My set up will play them to 512 but I don't see any point to that level
If you can play your vinyl collection this way then you won't need to spend your money on hires albums elsewhere.
 
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pmsl just realised this thread is from 2013...it came up on the "similar threads" list :D:facepalm:

Yes, I've made a similar mistake before. Still, the thread is just as valid now as it was when it was started. I'm still happily buying DVD-As and SACDs, which I've managed to get on either eBay, Discogs or even one of the Amazon sites. Admittedly my buying has slowed somewhat over the past couple of years, but I'm still as interested as I was 15 years ago, and I'd buy a lot more albums if they were available in these formats.
 

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